Kampong Speu provincial police are searching for villagers who were part of a mob that beat up a drug addict who was accused of murdering a 68-year-old woman on May 31 in Ek Kapheap village of Kong Pesei district’s Prey Vihear commune.

The mob who beat the man seriously injured him and he died as a result of those injuries one day later.

Commune police chief Kith Vey said on June 1 that the mob beating stemmed from an earlier incident on May 31. The murder victim, Ros Samay, was taking care of her two-year-old grandson while the mother was working at a factory job, when the suspect Soeurn Sort, 25, allegedly hacked her to death with a cleaver at around 1pm that day.

Sort tried to escape from the scene of the crime on a motorbike, but a group of villagers chased him down and dragged him from the bike while kicking and punching him and then eventually hitting him with sticks.

Sort sustained serious injuries before the police arrived and intervened by taking him into custody and immediately bringing him to Kong Pesei Referral Hospital. Doctors were unable to stabilize his condition, however, and he then died on June 1 due to the injuries caused by the mob beating him, according to Vey.

Vey said Sort was known to use drugs and that many speculated that it was likely that on the day he murdered Samay he must have been under their influence and unable to control himself. Samay and Sort’s relatives told police that the two had never had any serious arguments with each other in the past.

“Before police arrived on the scene the villagers went after him very violently out of anger over what he’d done. He was badly injured and he died one day later,” Vey said.

Provincial deputy police chief Sam Sak said on June 1 that police officers are working to identify the villagers who caused the man’s injuries.

“He hacked the woman to death and was beaten to death by the villagers in return, but this is not justice, it is lawless retribution. Police are now searching for the villagers involved in the mob violence,” he said.

Lawyer Yong Phanit said that although Sort killed the woman and the villagers could lawfully detain him until police arrived, they weren’t legally able to beat him in the manner that they did unless it was an act of self-defence in response to further violence on the part of Sort towards them at that time.

He added that the murder case against Sort could be closed as soon as it was confirmed that he was Samay’s killer, since he is also now deceased.

However, he said that under the law the police must investigate the actions of the villagers who beat Sort and determine what the circumstances were and then perhaps determine which villagers bear responsibility for the injuries that led to his death, rather than attempting to charge everyone who was present with murder.